


Alternative Ulster

by LiteralCaskOfAmontillado



Series: The Foggy Dew [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:21:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26020312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiteralCaskOfAmontillado/pseuds/LiteralCaskOfAmontillado
Summary: Is this the kind of place you want to live? Is this where you want to be? Is this the only life we're gonna have?Heresy considers her options.
Series: The Foggy Dew [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1735855
Kudos: 1





	Alternative Ulster

It felt like a slap in the face- a very garrish slap in the face with the paint still running down the scraggly brick wall. Heresy found it early that morning after she’d gotten back from rounds, which meant somebody snuck in behind her to leave that message there for her to find. The graffiti infuriated her, almost beyond reason. 

“Keep Running”. How absolutely rude. 

After 650 years, there are a great many things an enemy could suggest she keep running from. Her personal demons? That’s a given, a cheap shot. Castor Morningstar? A potshot, more like a shot in the night, but a shot directed toward her, nonetheless. 

But it’s the red handprint that throws her for a loop, even more than the ominous suggestion. Her mind drifted to Bohannon Feirste, and her chest ached from the pin-pricks betrayal. True, their fathers had fought viciously, but now it seemed that Bo was ready to resume their fathers’ old grudge. Heresy thought about the tattoos synonymous with The Volunteers- their red right hands. The way they can mark their territory with the magic in their tattoo any time they please. Cement, bricks, sidewalks, telephone poles, flesh. Like dogs marking their territory with piss. The red palm print on her wall is all too familiar. She felt exactly as if she was being suffocated.

John shows up with coffee just in time to stop her from doing something irrational. She’s never really been a coffee person, but she will make an exception if John is the one who made the cup. 

They sip quietly for a few minutes, breaths steaming the air on a bitter Irish morning. Heresy stares dead ahead at the taunting words of a trespasser. John simply sneaks glances at his girlfriend, not sure what else he can say before she does something aggressive in retaliation. 

“I know you’re mad,” he starts, and Heresy laughs, although it comes out like the cackle of a hyena.

Hyenas only laugh when they’re agitated, or ready to attack. 

“ _Mad_? I’m fucking fuming,” she shook her head, sipping her coffee to calm her nerves.

John rolled his eyes, sipping in unison with his girlfriend. With a huff, he set his mug on the gravel path and walked up carefully to the poorly executed graffiti mural. He spun on his heel and turned to face Heresy with a look of determination that eased the pain in her chest, if only briefly.

“Okay, pretend I’m Bohannon,” John said as he tucked his hands in his jacket pockets.

“You don’t even look like him,” Heresy scoffed as she shook her head again, “what are you _doing_ , John?”

“Harry, please trust me here,” John begged with pleading eyes, arms flopping uselessly against his chest, “humour me, please?”

Heresy sighed, and then waved sarcastically at him.

“Hello, Bohannon, care to explain what the fuck this shit is?” Heresy grumbled, gesturing behind John with her coffee cup.

“Not like that,” John sighed, and then took his hands out of his pockets, “pretend I have Bo’s funky tattoo. Which arm do me and my boys have tatted up?”

“Well, the red right hand is their calling card,” Heresy pointed to John’s hand, “It’d be your right hand”

“Atta girl,” John nodded, and turned his back to her, “so what the fuck is that?”

Heresy followed his finger, to the handprint on the wall. It was a left hand. 

“Fuck me running,” she breathed, nearly dropping her coffee cup from her hands.

“Later, maybe,” John grinned, tucking his hand back in his jacket pockets with a huff, “I think you need to call Bohannon, first”

“That’s for damn sure,” she sighed, sagging slightly where she stood.

The couple dashed into the Foggy Dew’s bunker, beelining for the call station. Heresy’s fingers flashed across the dials, and the line was connected before she even realised what was happening. Bohannon hadn’t had much of a chance to speak before Heresy heard the chaos in the background.

Gunfire, accompanied by the various noises of a magical brawl. Torrents of fire, spears of sharpened shadow, and howling supernatural wind. A lot of it, from what she could hear over the phone.

“Bo?” Heresy asked worriedly, glancing over to John, who helplessly shrugged. 

Silence. More gunfire. More magical onslaught. Heresy thought she could hear Bo swearing far away from the receiver, but the artillery blasts and fireballs searing by the completely drowned out his voice.

“Silvertongue, I think I’ve got a problem. D’you think you could lend a hand after I clue you in here?” Bohannon asked through ragged breaths, and John watched Heresy nod with a smug tilt of her lips. 

“Let me guess- a splinter faction?” Bohannon merely laughed at her comment on the other end of the line.

“Aye, so they left you a message too?”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a broken record, I'm so sorry. Find me over on Tumblr as literal-cask-of-amontillado!


End file.
